Record-high temps for third day in a row

Long Island's unseasonably warm winter appears to be leading into the warmest March on record.

A record daily high of 74 degrees was reached Friday at Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma, the National Weather Service said, marking the third consecutive day for a record high temperature.

Friday's mark surpasses the 69 degrees recorded March 23, 1994, said Lauren Nash, a meteorologist with the Upton-based service. It also topped the record high for the day recorded by the Brookhaven National Laboratory -- 71 degrees in 1994.

The National Weather Service records date from 1984. Weather records from the lab run from 1949 to 2006.

Nash said Friday's record high was reached about 10:30 a.m.

Shortly before noon the temperature was still 74, according to weather service records. By shortly before 3 p.m. the temperature had dropped to 67 degrees.

Cooler -- and wetter -- weather is right around the corner, thanks to a low pressure system coming in from the Midwest. Nash said the system moving in from the rain-drenched Midwest will bring rain, but only in small amounts, between one-tenth to one-quarter of an inch, beginning Saturday afternoon and into Sunday.

The low-pressure system also is expected to bring temperatures a little closer to normal for most of the start of next week, with lows in the mid 40s to highs in the low to mid 50s, Nash said.

Still, Long Island temperatures for March are on their way to being a record breaker.

On Thursday, the temperature at MacArthur reached hit 73 degrees at 1:03 p.m., said the service said, beating the previous high of 67 in 2003. On Wednesday the high was 72, up from the mark of 60 set in 1995.

As of Wednesday, the average temperature for the month was 46.3, which breaks the record of 44.7 set in 2010 for the same period -- March 1 through 21, said Dan Hofmann, also a weather service meteorologist in Upton.

Don't be too quick to pin the increased temperatures on global warming, said Brian A. Colle, a professor in Stony Brook University's School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. Yes, temperatures have been rising gradually over the past 20 or 30 years, he said. But this week's abnormal highs are tied to an unrelated high-pressure ridge from the tropics that's moved as far north as Canada, accounting for warmer temperatures for the month and especially "amplified" this week.

Day-to-day at MacArthur, five records have been broken so far this month, Hofmann said. In addition to this week's temperatures, March 12 saw a high of 65, up from the record 56 in 1990, and the high of 69 on March 14 topped the record 64 in 2002, he said.

And this March is well on its way to beat the record MacArthur temperature for the entire month -- 45.1 -- also set in 2010, he said.

"There is a high chance that we will do that," Hofmann said, though "a shot of cooler" but still average-temperature air is forecast for this weekend and early next week.

So, how do temperatures look for April, May and June? The weather service projects a 40 percent chance of above-average temperatures for those months, Hofmann said. Average high temperatures are 58 in April, 69 in May and 77 in June, according to weather.com.